COSAIOG'ONY (ante), properly denotes the science of the world's formation, but. in the absence of knowledge, is ,applied to theories on the subject and even to mythical accounts. The views of the ancients in regard to it may be cOmprised in three classes.
1. That the world is eternal both in matter and form. Aristotle taught that heaven and earth, inanimate substances and living beings, had no beginning, but were the eternal effect of an eternal cause. Yet he believed that that cause was a spiritual substance; that God is an intelligent spirit, incorporeal, indivisible, immovable, the mover of all things; and that the world is an emanation from him rather than a creation by him.
2. That the matter of the world is eternal, but not its form. Asserting that from nothing nothing could conic, many felt compelled to maintain that the world has always existed insome form. Yet the many evident changes equally compelled them to deny that any one form was eternal. The first forms. as they said, had a succession of vari able movements which became regular by chance. The Greek poets, ,following the old mythological views, represent the universe as coming forth from chaos and darkness, without the action of God. Some philosophers ascribed all things to an infinity of atoms or indivisible particles, having form, size, and weight, existing from eternity, moving by chance, combining into a variety of substances, and changed in the progress of time into the present organization of things. The Stoics attributed the origin of all things to two principles which they called God and matter, yet regarded them both as corporeal, as they did not admit the existence of spiritual beings. 3. The third theory ascribes the origin of the world to a great spiritual creator. There are traces of it among the Etruscans, Magi, Druids, and Brahmans, who probably derived it by tradition from a primitive revelation. It was, to some extent, received among the Greeks and Romans. It is especially the doctrine of the Scriptures, which teach it with the supreme design of exhibiting the wisdom and power of God rather than of setting forth, with what we call scientific exactness, the modes and processes by which the worlds were formed. They employ common language as that which the most set• entific and the most uncultured alike understand and use. And although their main design is net to teach physical science, yet. considered as the word of God, whenever they do speak concerning his works, they must speak the truth. That the between the word and the works may appear, it is necessary that both should be fully understood. If either or both be incorrectly interpreted, contradictions necessarily appear. In the past, the interpretations of both have been either absolutely false or only imperfectly true. But as biblical and physical science, each in its own line, advance towards perfection, the harmony between them is seen to be great and wonderful.
The account at the opening of the Bible, as at present understood, sets forth the following points. 1. That the matter of the world had its origin " in the beginning" by the action of God. The word bard., translated " create," is used three times in the narrative, at its great transition points, with reference to the original matter, of animal life, and of man endowed with spiritual life; in all other instances, where processes of formation only are implied, another word, asap, translated " made," is used; and at the close both are joined together: " God created to make." 2. Matter in its primitive state
is said to have been " without form and void ;" both words have substantially the same meaning—empty, and by the repetition signify Ivry empty; thus they supply the tit description of gaseous matter. 3. It is said that darkness prevailed unbroken. 4. That motion was imparted to the mass. The root of the word te-hinn signifies, revolving or circular motion, and the form of it denotes that to which such motion has been imparted. 5. The action of God's power on the mass. 6. Light diffused through the mass as one of the first results of motion. 7. Separation of light from darkness. Light, wherever existing, is called " day," and darkness, wherever remaining, is called night. This marked off the first period. 8. The second period was distinguished by the not of a " firmament" (as the English translation has it, from the Latin firmamentum, and that from the Greek all describing the heaven as a solid sphere), but of an expanse, as Moses says, giving a good expression for the atmosphere expanded around the world. The great ilea of the second period's work is division or separation. This follows from motion as certainly as light. "The vast primitive nebula of the first period breaks up into masses, and these are concentrated into stars." 9. To the third period two works are assigned: (a) The formation of the material globe of the earth. The main fact expressed is the condensation of matter into the solid globe and its liquid covering. The result is given without any statement of the process. (b) The introduction of vege table life as the connecting link between inert matter and animal life. An outline of the system is given once for all at the origin of it. 10. At the fourth period, the sun, moon, and stars appeared as within the earth's atmosphere, to give light to the earth; to divide its day from its night; and to govern its seasons, days, and years. These were not formed in the fourth period, but then appeared, the original light of the earth hav ing declined sufficiently to make them visible within its atmosphere. 11. The fifth and sixth periods untold the successive creation of the various tribes of animals which people the water, the air, and the land, " in the precise order indicated by geology." In the fifth the water-animals were created, marine monsters and birds; the n'zth (the third period in the era of life) was distinguished (as the third in the ern of matter had been) by two works. (a) the formation of the higher animals that live on the land, and (b) the creation of man. For the former, the word employed is " God made." The word " create" hav ing been used to describe the beginning of animal life, all the mai itications of it are described only as "made." But the second work of the sixth period was the introduction of a higher order of life, conseqnently it is said, God "created" man in his image.